Chicano

For other uses, see Chicano (disambiguation).

"Chicano teenager in El Paso's second ward. A classic barrio which is slowly giving way to urban renewal." South El Paso, Texas, July 1972. Photograph by Danny Lyon.

Chicano is a cultural identity for persons who live in the United States and have a strong sense of Mexican-American ethnic identity and an accompanying political consciousness. The term's meaning has changed over time and varies regionally. It is worth noting that not all Americans of Mexican descent proud of their heritage use the term Chicano.

A female Chicano is called a Chicana, a term which tends to have feminist connotations. The term follows the usual conventions for Spanish words, in that the masculine plural form Chicanos is used for groups that include both genders.

The term Chicano

Etymology

The origin of the word has been explained in various ways.

According to the Mexican researcher Manuel Gamio, chicamo (with an "m") was first used in Texas in the beginning of the 20th century.

Villar Raso traces the term's origin to California in the 1930s and 1940s:

"the inability of native Nahuatl speakers from Morelos state to refer to themselves as Mexicanos, and instead spoke of themselves as Mesheecanos, in accordance with the pronunciation rules of their language."

The pronunciation was met with derision by settled Mexican Americans, who exaggerated the sound to mock the recently-arrived. In both cases, the term and its pronunciation are analogous to the Nahuatl word Mexica.

An alternate etymology holds that the conversion of the pronunciation of the "x" in Mexicano was converted to /sh/ or /ch/ as either a term of endearment or of derisiveness.

Chicamo eventually became chicano, which, unlike chicamo, reflects the grammatical conventions of Spanish-language ethno- and demonyms, such as americano, castellano, or peruano.

Meanings

The term's meanings are highly subjective but usually consist of one or more of the following elements:

Slur

• Ana Castillo: "[A Xicana is a] marginalized, brown woman who is treated as a foreigner and is expected to do menial labor and ask nothing of the society in which she lives."

Chicamo (with an "m") was first used as a derogatory term for recently-arrived Mexican immigrants by Mexican-American Texans at the beginning of the 20th century.

In Mexico, the term connotes a Mexican-American person of low class and poor morals. [1], [2], [3]. Low class in Mexico is strongly related to social status and not economic status.

In Southern California, the term connotes a Mexican-American who is proud of their heritage, and is proactive in asserting their unique heritage and family values. Eg: "Chicano Power".

Ethnic identity

The term Chicano was taken up in the mid 1960s by Mexican American activists, who, in attempt to rid the word of its negative connotation and create a unique ethnic identity, reconfigured its meaning by proudly identifying themselves as Chicanos.

Generational identity

Most Americans first heard of the term in the 1960s and 1970s, and thought of Chicano as a term for children of parents who were immigrants from Mexico.

Political identity

According to the Handbook of Texas:

Inspired by the courage of the farmworkers, by the California strikes led by Cesar Chavez, and by the Anglo-American youth revolt of the period, many Mexican-American university students came to participate in a crusade for social betterment that was known as the Chicano movement. They used Chicano to denote their rediscovered heritage, their youthful assertiveness, and their militant agenda. Though these students and their supporters used Chicano to refer to the entire Mexican-American population, they understood it to have a more direct application to the politically active parts of the Tejano community.

At certain points in the 1970s, Chicano was the preferred, politically correct term to use in reference to Mexican-Americans, particularly in the scholarly literature from the field of sociology. However, as the term became politicized, its use fell out of favor as a means of referring to the entire population. Since then, Chicano has tended to refer to politicized Mexican-Americans.

Sabine Ulibarri, an author from Tierra Amarilla, New Mexico, notes that Chicano is a politically loaded term, though it is considered a positive term of honor by many.

Ambiguous identity

• In the 1991 Culture Clash play "A Bowl of Beings", in response to Che Guevara's demand for a definition of "Chicano", an "armchair activist" cries out, "I still don't know!!"

• Bruce Novoa: "A Chicano lives in the space between the hyphen in Mexican-American", . . Houston: , 1990.

For Chicanos, the term usually implies being "neither from here, nor from there" in reference to the U.S. and Mexico respectively. As a mixture of cultures from both countries, being Chicano represents the struggle of being accepted into the Anglo-dominated society of the United States while maintaining the cultural sense developed as a Latino child.

Indigenous identity

• Ruben Salazar: "A Chicano is a Mexican-American with a non-Anglo image of himself."

• Leo Limón: "...because that's what a Chicano is, an indigenous Mexican American".

Many individuals of Mexican descent view the use of the words Chicano or Chicana as reclamation and regeneration of an indigenous culture destroyed through colonialism.

Political device

• Reies Tijerina: "The Anglo press revolutionized the word 'Chicano'. We use it, but they use it to divide us from Latin America."

Synonyms

The following terms are often used in place of Chicano:

• la raza (literally, the race, but also connoting "el pueblo" or "la gente", both of which mean "the people"), which refers generally to the people of Latin America who share the cultural and political legacies of Spanish colonialism, including the Spanish language and culture, and their descendants.)
• la raza de bronce ("the bronze race") (used to emphasze the "brown" or "bronze" Indigenous ancestry over their white or black ancestry)
• americanista (common in early twentieth-century )
• indigenist (common in early twentieth-century )
• la raza cósmica (the cosmic race)

Due to the gendered nature of Spanish language, some activists and writers who do not find the masculine term Chicano acceptable to use as a plural, use the terms "Chicano/a" or "Chican@."

Some younger Mexican Americans refer to themselves as Xicanos with an "X" to reflect a closer identification with their indigenous Mexica/Aztec roots, as well as their more radical political views.

Rejection

Some Mexican Americans prefer to identify themselves as:

• American (sometimes the term first like "American-Mexican")
• Hispanic
• Hispanic American
• Hispano or Hispana
• Latino or Latina
• Mexican American
• Mexican
• Spanish American
• Spanish
• Californio, Nuevomexicano (New Mexico Spanish) or Tejano/Tejana.

The reasons for rejecting the term Chicano are numerous and varied, from an aversion to its association with the militant left-wing politics of the 1960s and 1970s, to the ability of many families, particularly in the state of New Mexico, to trace their ancestry back to the original Spanish settlers of the colonial era. Another common reason to reject Chicano is the bad connotations associated with it, primarily in Mexico.

Social aspects

Chicanos, regardless of their generational status, tend to connect their culture to the indigenous peoples of North America and to a historically revised mythical nation of Aztlán. [4], [5], [6], [7]. According to the Aztec Myth, Aztlán is an island; Chicano nationalists have equated it with the Southwestern United States. Historians tend to place Aztlán in Nayarit or the Caribbean, and make a distinction between the Myth, the potential historical location, and the contemporary socio-political recreation.

Political aspects

Main article: Chicano Movement

Many currents came together to produce the Chicano political movement of the 1960s and 1970s. Early struggles were against school segregation, but the Mexican American cause, or La Causa as it was called, soon came under the banner of the United Farm Workers and Cesar Chavez. However, Reies Tijerina stirred up old tensions about New Mexican land claims with roots going back to before the Mexican-American War. Simultaneous movements to empower youth, question patriarchy, democratize the Church, end police brutality, and end the Vietnam War all intersected with other ethnic nationalist, peace, countercultural, and feminist movements.

For some, Chicano ideals involve a rejection of borders. The 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo transformed the Rio Grande region from a rich cultural center to a rigid border enforced by the United States government. At the end of the Mexican-American War, 80,000 Spanish-Mexican-Indian people were forced into sudden U.S. habitation. As a result, Chicano identification is aligned with the idea of Aztlán, which extends to the Aztec period of Mexico, celebrating a time preceding land division.

Paired with the dissipation of militant political efforts of the Chicano movement in the 1960s was the emergence of the Chicano generation. Like their political predecessors, the Chicano generation rejects the "immigrant/foreigner" categorization status.

The shared Spanish language, Catholic faith, and history of labor segregation and ethnic exclusion and discrimination encourage a united Chicano folkloric tradition in the United States. Ethnic cohesiveness is a resistance strategy to assimilation and the accompanying cultural dissolution.

Cultural aspects

The term Chicano is also used to describe the literary, artistic, and musical movements that emerged with the Chicano Movement.

Literature

Chicano literature tends to focus on themes of identity, discrimination, and culture, with an emphasis on validating Mexican American and Chicano culture in the United States. Rodolfo "Corky" Gonzales's "Yo Soy Joaquin" is one of the first examples of Chicano poetry. See also Chicano poetry:[8]. Other important writers in the genre include Rudolfo Anaya, Sandra Cisneros, Gary Soto and Oscar Zeta Acosta.

Arts

File:Hiawatha openining039a.jpg

QuetzalCoatlicue Danza Mexica Azteca uses dance to portray the history of Chichimeca (or Aztec). Minneapolis, Minn.; United States. 2004.

In the visual arts, work by Chicanos addresses similar themes as works in literature. The preferred media for Chicano art are murals and graphic arts. San Diego's Chicano Park, home to the largest collection of murals in the world, was created as an outgrowth of the city's political movement by Chicanos. Rasquache art is a unique style subset of the Chicano Arts movement.

Chicano performance art blends humor and pathos for tragi-comic effect as shown by Los Angeles' comedy troupe Culture Clash and Mexican-born performance artist Guillermo Gomez-Pena.

One of the most powerful and far-reaching cultural aspects of Chicano Culture is the indigenous current that strongly roots Chicano culture to the American continent. It also unifies Chicanismo, within the larger Pan Indian Movement. Since its arrival in 1974, What is known as Danza Azteca in the U.S., (and known by several names in its homeland of the central States of Mexico: danza Conchera, De la Conquista, Chichimeca, etc) has had a deep impact in Chicano muralism, graphic design, tattoo art (flash), poetry, music, and literature.

Music

Lalo Guerrero is considered the "father of Chicano music". Beginning in the 1930s, he wrote songs in the big band and swing genres that were popular at the time. He expanded his repertoire to include songs written in traditional genres of the Mexican music, and during the farmworkers' rights campaign, wrote music in support of Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers.

Rock

In the 1960's and 1970's, a wave of Chicano rock surfaced through innovative musicians Johnny Rodriguez, Carlos Santana, Linda Ronstadt, and Joan Baez, herself of Mexican-American descent included Hispanic themes in some of her protest folk songs. Chicano rock is rock music performed by Mexican American groups or music with themes derived from Chicano culture.

There are two undercurrents in Chicano rock. One is a devotion to the original rhythm and blues roots of Rock and roll including Ritchie Valens, Sunny and the Sunglows, and ? and the Mysterians. Groups inspired by this include Sir Douglas Quintet, Thee Midniters, Los Lobos, War, Tierra, and El Chicano, and, of course, the Chicano Blues Man himself, the late Randy Garribay.

Chicano punk is a branch of Chicano rock. Examples of the genre include music by the bands Los Illegals, The Brat, The Plugz, Manic Hispanic and the Cruzados; these bands have come out of the punk scene in Los Angeles. Some music historians argue that Chicanos of Los Angeles in the late 1970's might have independently co-founded punk rock along with the already-acknowledged founders from British-European sources when introduced to the US in major cities.

The second theme is the openness to Latin American sounds and influences. Trini Lopez, Santana, Malo, Azteca, Toro, Ozomatli and other Chicano Latin Rock groups follow this approach. Chicano rock crossed paths of other Latin rock genres (Rock en espanol) by Cubans, Puerto Ricans, and South America ("Nueva cancion" has a more European influence found in Argentina and Chile), but Nueva cancion spread into Peru, Colombia and Venezuela.

Jazz

Although Latin Jazz is most popularly associated with artists from the Caribbean (particularly Cuba) and Brazil, young Mexican Americans have played a role in its development over the years, going back to the 1930s and early 1940s, the era of the zoot suit, when young Mexican American musicians in Los Angeles began to experiment with Jazz-like Mexican music. This type of Latin Jazz came back into vogue in the 1990's and 2000's, with a strong recent example being the work of the singer Jenni Rivera.

Rap

Chicano rap is a unique style of hip hop music which started with Kid Frost, who began using Spanish in the early 1990's. While Mellow Man Ace was the first mainstream rapper to use Spanglish, Frost's song "La Raza" paved the way for the use Spanish in their English (Spanglish) in American hip hop. Chicano rap tends to discuss themes of importance to young urban Chicanos. Today's main chicano artists are Lil Rob, Baby Bash, B-Real, Darkroom Familia, Delinquent Habits, Chingo Bling and Aztlan Underground.

Other

Other famous Chicano/Mexican American singers include Selena, who sang a variety of Mexican, local Tex-mex and American popular music, but was killed at age 23 in 1995. And Los Lonely Boys are a Texas style country rock band, but never shyed away from their Mexican American roots in their music. In recent years, a growing Tex-Mex polka band trend and from Mexican immigrants (i.e. Conjunto or Norteno) has influenced much of new Chicano folk music, esp. in large market Spanish language radio stations and on television music video programs in the U.S. The band Quetzal is known for its political songs, while The Kumbia Kings had combined Mexican regional: cumbia, merengue and tropical, with American rap, hip-hop and rock rhythms, and Daddy Yankee, although Puerto Rican, has connected well to Mexican-American/Chicano music styles.

See also

• Aztlán
• Brown Berets
• Caló (Chicano)
• Casta
• Chicano Rap
• Cholo
• Colegio César Chávez
• Ethnicity (United States Census)
• History of Mexican-Americans
• List of Chicano Caló words and expressions
• List of Chicano poets
• List of notable Chicanos
• MEChA
• Mestizo
• Mexican Americans
• Pachuco
• Race (U.S. Census)
• Tejano
• White Americans- The ambiguous "white" identity versus "Hispanic" for Mexican Americans or Chicanos throughout US demographic history.
• Zoot Suit Riots

References

• Tino Villanueva, Chicanos (selección), Lecturas Mexicanas, número 889, FCE/SEP, México, 1985, p. 7

External links

• Chicanas.com
• Chicana community search engine
• Chicano-Art
• UCLA Women
• Danza Mexi'cayotl: Traditional Chicano-Azteca-Chichimeca Dance Circle
• National Association for Chicana and Chicano Studies
• I Am Chicana, Not Hispanic!

Articles

• Avila, K. TENAZ (Teatros Nacionales de Aztlan) XVI International Theatre Festival, Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center, San Antonio, Texas, 11-15 Nov. 1992. Buscando California newsletter, Nov.-Dec. 1992, vol. 1, no. 8 (text file copy)